


One Good Turn

by RecessiveJean



Category: Miss Marple - Agatha Christie
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Banter, Cordial Adversaries, Flirting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-25
Updated: 2013-12-25
Packaged: 2018-01-06 02:02:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1101089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RecessiveJean/pseuds/RecessiveJean
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They are getting some practice in saving each other. They just aren't either of them sure what the practice is <i>for</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	One Good Turn

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lost_spook](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lost_spook/gifts).



> I wish I'd had more time to do this prompt justice. After I saw it I went back and reread _Pocketful of Rye_ and just . . . these two need all the fic! This will have to do to be going on with, and I hope you like it!

The first time Inspector Neele saw Mary Dove after Yewtree Lodge, she saved his life.

He had just stepped onto the platform when he was dealt a sharp blow from behind. He stumbled, clutched at the air, and came up holding the shoulder of a surprised woman well past her middle age.

Having begged the pardon of his unintended victim, Inspector Neele turned to see who had shoved him.

Unsurprisingly, nobody stepped forward to own to it. The platform at Christmastime was the usual knot of harried shoppers, arms laden with parcels, faces furrowed with the effort of focusing on whatever tasks and burdens still awaited them at home. It was possible the person who had shoved him hadn’t even realised what had happened . . .

“Are you by any chance working a case, Inspector?”

The voice was low and entirely too familiar. He turned and found Miss Dove standing behind him. She was smart and respectable in a green tweed travelling suit with a foxfur collar. Her hat was just on the modest side of style, which made him wonder.

“Should I ask of you the same question, Miss Dove?”

“You certainly may. But seeing as, of the two of us, I was not almost stabbed on Charing Cross platform, I think perhaps mine is the more relevant of the identical queries.”

“Stabbed?”

Inspector Neele tried to picture Mary Dove stabbing anyone. It didn’t work. She seemed to read his mind.

“Not I. A rather ferrety-looking fellow in a cheap overcoat. Hat pulled very low—it’s why I noticed him, actually. I was just thinking it was too large for his head when I saw the knife in his hand. Then I saw him aim it at your back, so I gave you a shove. I am sorry about that, but it did save you spending Christmas with a hospital nurse clucking over you. So there is that.”

She shifted the small parcel she held to her other arm, then added, “and please don’t thank me. My blushes would not become the foxfur.”

Inspector Neele ran rapidly through the suspects in his current case. There was one who might fit her description, if he wore his hat pulled very low . . .

“I am much obliged to you, Miss Dove. Now perhaps we can return to the matter of _your_ present case—”

“Oh dear,” sighed Mary Dove, “would you look at the time? I really must be going.”

She started away down the platform at a good clip, but paused about five yards away to pivot on one exquisite heel and call back, “and perhaps avoid mass transport in the future until you have laid your quarry by the heels. I cannot _always_ be saving your life, after all.”

Then she disappeared into the crowd, before Inspector Neele could even wish her Happy Christmas.

 

* * *

 

 

The next time Mary Dove saw Inspector Neele, he saved her life.

And it wasn't even Christmas.

She was walking down the street to her hotel, a small collection of envelopes held snug beneath one arm. They would be offers of positions, and she had set aside the next two days to read and consider each. She would sort them into three piles: definite no, possible yes, and more information required.

The first pile, of course, would be everybody who began by arguing about the fee, or explained that her duties would involve the care of small children, or people who kept dogs. The type of person to whom Mary Dove passed along all relevant information did not appreciate a house that kept dogs.

The second pile—

But then came the curb, and the car, and it was rushing at her much too fast to stop and before she could even realise she must decide which way she ought to jump, an arm locked about her waist and hauled her back onto the curb.

She clutched her letters to her chest and blinked up into the face of Inspector Neele.

“Miss Dove,” he said, “did nobody ever teach you to look both ways?”

“I was thinking of sorting,” she said meekly. “I am afraid it was distracting.”

Inspector Neele did not seem to know how to respond to that, she noted. That was satisfying, somehow. As if the very truth, and nothing but the truth, had scored her some victory in a game whose name she did not even know.

“Did you catch him?” she asked, because she really had wondered, ever since that day. “Your little fellow with the hat and the knife, I mean.”

“Oh! Yes, we got him all right,” he nodded. “Got him very neatly. Seeing him in the city that day—that is, your seeing him—was just what we needed to put us onto the woman who was his alibi . . . but then, you’ll have read that in the papers.”

“I hadn’t, actually. I’ve been on holiday.”

“Oh? Get many holidays, in your line of work?”

“Only between jobs,” said Mary Dove, feeling peculiarly emboldened by the plain truth. She watched his gaze drop to the packet of letters, and saw every thought that crossed his mind as clearly as if he’d narrated their passage.

There was a kind of danger in this, but poetry as well. Like a dance.

“Well then, Miss Dove,” he stepped back and touched the brim of his hat, “I shall leave you to your correspondence. For now.”

It was a challenge, and it should not have excited her as much as it did. She made a little bow in return, perfectly correct and entirely grateful.

“Thank you, Inspector.” And then, because she meant it, “Au revoir.”

She set off across the street again, and she hoped Inspector Neele lingered long enough to notice that this time, she took particular care to look both ways.


End file.
